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Astronomer Guide

Greetings fellow Astronomers and newcomers to this lovely bloodline!

The purpose of this guide is to help you enter into the basics of Astronomancing. If none of this information is deemed useful to yourself well congratulations, you’re most likely a skilled Astronomer! Pass this guide on to your friends who haven’t started playing this excellent bloodline. If you feel anything is missing or if you have any questions please feel free to comment!

Why Astro?

If you like a lot of utility, damage, while being self sufficient and being able to support your teammates as well, through both heals and debuffs then it might just be time to take up Astronomy. Let’s take a look at his abilities.

[M1] Spectro Strike

Essentially what you’re stuck DPS’ing with as Astro is a phenominal melee ability. Now although it compromises your position in order to put out pressure you will be able to contribute wonderfully for burst opportunities, to the point where you should be able to determine where your team gets kills.

As for the Solar Energy, you build it up over time (every 2.5), or after being hit during Solar Charge in order to reach 4 stacks. Once at 4 you will be able to hit for an additional 10 damage, all the while debuffing the enemy, reducing their healing, movement speed and damage done by 33%. That’s a third of essentially everything that person can do for the next 2.4 seconds, and works great on both the kill target and the opposing healer, and sometimes that person is one in the same!

[M2] Sunlight

Your heal, the better your aim the more it heals for, and the more consecutive heals you get the more you will heal for once again. This is your only spammable heal so you will have to learn to love it if you intend on playing Astro.

Aurora EX (Default bind: #1)

Heals ally closest to target location for 20 health and applies Aurora, heals other nearby allies for up to 6 health. As distance from impact location increases, healing decreases.

Your EX heal, a whopping 40% energy to heal for 20. But wait! There’s more! It applies a 25% cast speed, and attack speed buff on yourself for the next 5 seconds.

Now although it can be used offensively, there are defensive uses as well. For example, you or a partner get caught with no outs, in this situation the 25% additional throughput can be a life saver. Remember, to save some one’s ass Aurora yourself, to put out pressure, throw this at your biggest damage dealer.

[Space] Sun Ellipse

On demand mobility! Makes you into two sparkling balls of greatness that flies toward your mouse position on map. Can be used to get through walls to line of sight enemies, to jump in to save your friends with a fairly large burst heal based on where you land in addition to knocking the melee enemies back, and even as a gap closer to initiate your own burst damage. Jumping in on some one and meleeing them with a 4 stack of Solar Energy hits for 24 + 22.

Sun Swirl EX (Default bind: #2)

Splits self into two orbs traveling in a swirl to target location, each orb heals allies for 5 health and deals 5 damage to enemies. Heals allies near the destination for 8 health, deals 8 damage to enemies near the destination. Astronomer travels back to his original position if the destination is blocked by terrain. Using this ability reduces cooldown of Sun Ellipse by 75%.

Your EX jump! I tend to use this more often than Aurora since the situation arises more. Whether I played poorly and am getting my ass kicked and need to get away and quickly this move is great. Not only does it jump roughly twice the distance of Sun Ellipse, but it also reduces the cooldown of your next Sun Ellipse/Sun Swirl by 75%, so 1.875 seconds after you use this you can jump once again!

Also great for catching people who are interested in just staying max range or being a try hard at the end of a game and running for their lives. But remember, jumping in means you can’t always jump out!

[Q] Moon Stone

The only true crowd control you have, but a great one. You apply a small circle of magic stars on the ground and turn your enemies into stone after 1 second. So when you drop this you need to ask yourself, where is this guy going to be 1 second from now? Also great to use to initiate switches, or to interrupt trances and force an enemy to waste one of their outs. Remember, hits all enemies so good luck hitting as many as you can!

[E] Moon Burst

An Astronomer’s best (and only) way to attack from range. It too applies a debuff on the enemy, that reduces movement speed and casting speed. But what does that mean? That they’ll be casting 33% less spells for the next 3.5 seconds. Great if you have no outs and can risk the health to stop the melee from training you, to just slow down that enemy healer’s casts a little bit, or just to get that pesky guy from running all day. I even tend to cast this in melee range once I use my 4 stack Spectro Strike.

[R] Solar Charge

One of the more fun abilities Astro has (at least in my opinion), and your other “out”. However, it requires you to get hit at least once, but the good news is that you don’t take the damage, don’t get the debuff, and better yet, you get buffs in addition to clearing all debuffs on you! A really great move. So once hit, you blind all those around you (literally meaning they see bright white on their screen for the duration), gain a movement speed increase of 40% so you can run for your life, and are automatically placed back at 4 stacks of Solar Energy.

A fun little trick with this is to Sun Ellipse in, Spectro Strike with 4 stacks, Solar Charge their next ability and Spectro Strike again with another 4 stacks for a pretty good chunk of some one’s life. Not to mention you can R Shadow Bolts coming from Harbingers, the stun from a stealthed Ranid, or the impending Execute you know is coming from the recently Camouflaged Gunner.

[F] Astral Beam

Your ULTIMATE ability, and boy does it live up to the name. Once at 100% energy you can unload this bad boy all over your friends and foes. Does massive, penetrating damage, great healing and slows to boot. Though you wouldn’t want to waste it, so make sure the enemy’s outs are on cooldown before you use this, after all, you worked so hard to get it! Personally. I won’t use it unless I can cast it simultaneously with one of my partners hard hitting abilities, just to make sure it counts.

In the Field of Battle

Basics, positioning, knowing what to use when and knowing when to do what. Sounds quite philosophical, but hopefully the answers I can lend here won’t be so. Instead, I’ll throw some common situations and some decent reactions to them.

Be sure to use your Moon Burst and Moon Stone as often as possible. Moon Burst both for the energy gain and the debuff it applies, and Moon Stone for the crowd control on the enemies, both to stop their damage or to stop their heals. So moving on!

Positioning

Now although you’re a healer, you can’t always play as such. After all, the burst of an Astro tends to very well change the outcome of a match. What does that mean? It means that I’m afraid you’ll have to come in line of sight of the enemy and to stop hugging those corners so closely.

Feel free to Sun Ellipse in or waltz in and let them know that you’re not just their to keep your teammates alive, but just be sure you can get out! You’ll always have to ask yourself if sacrificing your position and an out is worth the damage you’ll put out and knocking the other team defensive.

Movement

Moving is important! It is easy to hit a target moving linearly, meaning straight lines are predictable. Try juking like a football player, left right left right, you’ll be amazed at how much less damage you take. Also, remember you don’t have to sit still and spam casts (in Astro’s case only heals). Most of the time sitting still is the same as a sitting duck. Cast, move, cast, move, a great way to avoid the harass coming from a single DPS, or even both if they are on you and you need to get closer to the pillars and line of sight.

Some Hypothetical Situations

My partners and I are all at full health, they have little pressure going and aren’t on me. Here you don’t need to heal, so let’s put out some damage! Feel free to jump in and start chopping away, make sure to apply your Moon Burst debuff and Moon Stone that healer as best you can provided you aren’t on him.

I just took a large amount of damage but my teammates are okay and I am at range. Well hopefully you’re near a pillar, if not then shame on you! But get out of range or line of sight of the other team and heal up quickly, then get back into the fray and save your friends!

I just jumped into battle and can’t get out and they’re going to hurt me. Clearly you should try and stop that damage, but if you can’t then just avoid it, with Solar Charge! The Blind buys you some time of them not hurting you, and the movement speed increase lets you run for your life, back to the position you more than likely should have been at.

I’m near a wall and they just swapped to me. Feel free to throw a Spectro Strike at whatever unfortunate soul is on you and then jump on through that wall! After all, not everyone can do so and it will buy you time to get back on your toes!

Thanks for reading through my guide! I hope it gives you a leg up when picking up the Astronomer. If you have any points you’d like to make, please comment.